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Looking for a little #MondayMotivation? We’re pulling out past stories that are still just as relevant today. Here’s a pearl from Jim: A Customer’s Value Doesn’t Stop at the Checkout Screen.Once or twice over the years, I’ve mentioned the term Customer Lifetime Value.I thought I’d dwell on it for a moment because some might not be clear what it means in marketing terms and why it’s important.What it means, perhaps obviously, is the total economic value of a customer to...

Looking for a little #MondayMotivation? We’re pulling out past stories that are still just as relevant today. Here’s a pearl from Jim: To “Educate,” Entertain First.I was reading an article on the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young People’s Concerts. The series arose, apparently, when the younger brothers and sisters of the kids who showed up for the famous Young People’s Concerts got a little rowdy. Rather than giving those kids their first experience getting tossed out of a venue, the...

Looking for a little #MondayMotivation? We’re pulling out past stories that are still just as relevant today. Here’s a pearl from Jim: Programming Decisions Should Be Reconsidered Every Couple Centuries.A lot of discussions occur about how to save classical music institutions, but I think the one that is so obvious that it almost avoids being discussed at all is content. This article makes the point that there are a handful of “Great Men,” as the author calls them, whose music...

Looking for a little #MondayMotivation? We’re pulling out past stories that are still just as relevant today. Here’s a pearl from Jim: The Great Thing About a Live Event Is It Includes You.I had fun reading this article, in which the author complains about her recent trip to an Elton John concert. The problem was that people were singing along to Elton’s songs so much that she couldn’t even hear Elton sing.I sympathize, kinda.But not really. Because the last thing...

Looking for a little #MondayMotivation? We’re pulling out past stories that are still just as relevant today. Here’s a pearl from Jim: Dull Is Dangerous, Sharp Is Safe.Back in the days when I trained teenagers to cut bagels for living, we had an expression about knives: Dull is dangerous, sharp is safe. Basically, what that means is that a knife that isn’t properly sharpened has a tendency to snag or to cut a person’s hand in a way that’s much...

Looking for a little #MondayMotivation? We’re pulling out past stories that are still just as relevant today. Here’s a pearl from Jim: Don’t Tell Me You’re Not Doing This for an Audience.Because if that were true, you’d do it at home or in a closed studio.Dan Visconti, whom I’ve never met, has written a piece that, if I were an expert in classical music, I might have written. It’s called The Audience Is the Most Important Instrument, and you should...

Looking for a little #MondayMotivation? We’re pulling out past stories that are still just as relevant today. Here’s a pearl from Jim: What Reinvention Sounds Like.Slate‘s Mark Vanhoenacker has declared classical music “dead” in America. I’m not sure if there are other continents or republics where it’s all the rage, but here in the U.S.A., it’s not just in trouble. It’s deceased, passed on, bereft of life.As John Cleese would say, it’s an “ex-parrot.”This, of course, is an exaggeration, but...

Looking for a little #MondayMotivation? We’re pulling out past stories that are still just as relevant today. Here’s a pearl from Jim: How to Resolve the Battle Between the New and the Familiar.What do you call something, even if it’s good, that you’ve seen over and over again? Boring.What do you call something so new and different that it doesn’t make any sense to you? Weird.Most live entertainment content falls in between those poles, of course, but as a creator,...

Looking for a little #MondayMotivation? We’re pulling out past stories that are still just as relevant today. Here’s a pearl from Jim: Pricing Is Not a Marketing Campaign.Everyone knows that pricing of tickets affects sales, and the main way this is usually observed is when prices drop, ticket sales go up.What does this mean? Why does it work like this? Is it the equivalent of a word-of-mouth marketing campaign that gets people excited and talking about the tickets for sale?Not...

Looking for a little #MondayMotivation? We’re pulling out past stories that are still just as relevant today. Here’s a pearl from Jim: Don’t Say “Guest” When You Don’t Mean Guest.For some reason, businesspeople tend to drift toward gibberish in their speech. (And you’re all businesspeople, by the way, even those of you who believe that “businesses” do something different from what nonprofits do.)In the search for something interesting, different and effective to say, people try a lot of things. Many...